One of the lesser talked-about features of the upcoming OS X Mavericks system is that of Mac App Store subscriptions. In iOS, developers are able to charge users on a recurring basis, like a subscription. Magazines in Newsstand do this fairly easily, and I have several subscriptions to magazines there.

This wasn’t available to OS X apps until the release of OS X Mavericks, and you can manage your subscriptions from the Mac App Store right now if you’re running the new Mavericks beta on your Mac right now. Here’s how.

Launch the Mac App Store, click on the Store menu, and then select the View My Account… menu item. Sign in with your iTunes ID and password, and you’ll get the account summary screen. Down near the bottom, just like in iTunes, you’ll now see a Subscriptions area, with the number of subscriptions you have.

So far, all I’m seeing in my account is the Newsstand subscriptions, but I assume that as other Mac apps build this feature in, we’ll see more and more of them along the way.

Good progress, of course, and I’m looking forward to seeing how those clever Mac app developers put this new Mavericks feature into practice.

About the author

Rob LeFebvre is an Anchorage, Alaska-based writer and editor who has contributed to various tech, gaming and iOS sites, including 148Apps, Creative Screenwriting, Shelf-Awareness, VentureBeat, and Paste Magazine. Feel free to find Rob on Twitter @roblef, and send him a cookie once in a while; he'll really appreciate it.

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